Gary men charged with kidnapping of 2 women

June 14, 2010

Two Gary men have been charged with kidnapping a pair of women who they accused of stealing money from them after they visited a Michigan City casino one night last week, according to Lake County, Ind., authorities.

Leon Andrews Jr. and Rodney Tyree Hicks were arrested Thursday afternoon after they led police on a high-speed chase through Gary, said Lake County Sheriff Cmdr. Shaw Spurlock.

Police had set up a hostage-for-cash exchange and the men had released one of the women, but they took off when they saw the police at the scene. During the chase, the other kidnapped woman flung herself from their vehicle in an effort to escape.

In the end the men were arrested, two guns were recovered from their apartment building and neither kidnapped woman suffered more than minor injuries.

"It came out as well as we hoped," Spurlock said.

Andrews and Hicks have each been charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, accused of confining each woman against her will and moving them from place to place against their will. Additional charges are pending, Spurlock said.

On Wednesday night, the two women -- one from Chicago, the other from East Chicago -- were at a party in Chicago Heights with Andrews and Hicks and later went with the men to the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Spurlock said. They four stayed the night at a hotel there along with two other women who left sometime in the early morning Thursday, according to a probable cause affidavit from the office of the Lake County prosecuting attorney.

When they woke up, the men complained that their money was missing, and they drove with the women in their Dodge Durango SUV back to their apartment building in the 300 block of South Hancock Street in Gary, according to authorities. There, about 8 a.m., the men pulled an AK-47 assault rifle and a pump shotgun on the women and demanded they turn over $2,000, according to the affidavit.

"For some reason they believe that the girls have something to do with them missing money," Spurlock said.

One of the women called her mother, who told the men she could pay them. The men told her to bring the cash to a gas station near 5th Street and Colfax Avenue in Gary, Spurlock said.